This month, our Inventory and Supply Chain Optimization Blog turns three, and I want to take the opportunity to look back at some of the highlights from the past three years. Before I get into the top five most read articles, here are some interesting facts to note about our blog:
- We have written a total of 148 original pieces and delivered 147 supply chain weekly wrap-ups since October 2012.
- In April 2015, our blog made the “SCM Global 100” list, which recognized the top logistics supply chain and procurement blogs in the world.
- Readership has grown exponentially over the past 3 years. Below you see the 2014 numbers compared to 2015:
- A large portion of our traffic is generated through social media, with top social signals coming from Twitter and LinkedIn:
Based on these facts, several “thank yous” are in order. Firstly to our readers: We appreciate your feedback, comments and active sharing of our articles on the various social platforms. Also, this blog is made possible by several creative thinkers on our INFORM-team who are continually scanning the industry for top trends and providing expert advice on various supply chain topics. Furthermore, we spent the past year opening up our platform to guest bloggers, which has been quite beneficial as insightful new perspectives enhanced the variety of our articles. So to our guest bloggers: thank you for your contributions. We look forward to hearing from you again soon.
Top 5 articles based on unique page views
I previously mentioned the “social signals” as main traffic drivers to our blog. However, over the past year, we have experienced an increase in rankings in organic searches as well. This has created a shake-up in the rankings of our top 5 blog articles compared to last year.
1. The 3 Must-Haves for Successful Inventory Management
Nearly 70% of the visitors on this blog arrived through a search query on Google or some other search engine. In this blog, we compare inventory management to a tight-rope walk, high up in the air, and emphasize the importance of forecast analytics, sound procurement practices and proper controlling mechanisms to successful inventory management. Read the full article here.
2. 3 Ways Social Media is Impacting the Supply Chain
This is actually the only article that was carried over from the top 5 list from 2014 (ranked #1 last year). Social media within the logistics and supply chain industry is a recurring theme which has made this article into an “evergreen”, a term used in the blogging industry to describe an article that is continually relevant to a particular industry. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Social Media is not going away and it is time for companies to identify areas in which social media can improve processes. The areas of greatest impact mentioned in the article are supplier relationship management, transparency and the enhancement of internal process and communication. Read the full article here.
3. What can we learn from Apple’s supply chain?
This article shows that our blog visitors enjoy reading about practical examples from established industry experts. In this particular blog post, we dissected some of the main points that have made Apple successful in its supply chain operations, including tight control measures and intricate supplier relationships. After all, a company that continually lands at the top of supply chain performance lists must be able to teach us something, right? Read the full article here.
4. IKEA in Action: Logistics & Supply Chain Sustainability
In general, the topic of sustainability seems to be a reader-favorite, as it moves from a “nice-to-have” supply chain operations to a “must have”. IKEA serves as an excellent example in terms of incorporating sustainability into supply chain processes due to the company’s innovative thinking. I had the opportunity to sit in on a presentation from an IKEA employee back in 2014 and was impressed with how they have incorporated the topic into their core competencies. More details on IKEA’s innovative approach to sustainability can be read here.
5. The Amazing Supply Chain of the Common Ball Point Pen
The Amazing Supply Chain series was started exactly two years ago, and the humble ball-point pen was the first item we presented. This series belongs to the “entertainment” aspect of our blog as we track the journeys and production processes for various objects in order to display the level of complexity and globalization associated with supply chain processes, even for the simplest of items. Since the ball point pen, we have featured the world cup soccer ball, iPhone cases, cut flowers and your morning cup of coffee in this series. You can read about the ball point pen’s journey here.
Learning from the numbers
Successful blogs deliver content tailored to the audience. With a constant eye on analytics, we hope to continue delivering exciting articles that start conversations and provide logistics and supply chain managers with insights into the multi-faceted industry we work in. Based on the posts listed above, a quick conclusion can be drawn that, for example, list posts (top three, five tips for, …etc) are very popular amongst our readers. And as mentioned previously, best-practice examples from around the industry are also well-liked. For this reason, we started the “Ask an Expert” series which we hope to build upon in the coming year. If you have something to share regarding trending supply chain and logistics topics, we would be happy to hear from you. Feel free to send me an email at david.weaver@inform-software.com .
Blog Analytics also provide us with the opportunity to identify trending topics. It becomes easier to recognize, based on the number of unique visitors on certain pages, which topics are of most importance to our audience. Our statistics show that transparency, sustainability, and tips for effective inventory management are themes that are at the top of our readers’ minds.
I would like to invite you to leave your feedback in the comment section below or reach out to our team at scblog@inform-software.com. This will help us continue to deliver content you want to read.
What article was your favorite? What are some topics you would like to see addressed?
1 comment
Congratulations on reaching this milestone!
And please keep going, I like reading what you have to share.
Cheers,
Martijn Graat
LogisticsMatter.com
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